1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a performance test and an activation technique of an MEA (membrane electrode assembly) for a fuel cell, and more particularly to a multi-MEA test station having a new structure suitable for mass production of a fuel cell stack and a multi-MEA test method using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A fuel cell, which is a power generation system that directly converts fuel energy to electrical energy, has the advantages of low pollution and high efficiency. In particular, since fuel cells can generate electrical energy from an easily store and transported energy source, such as gasoline, natural gas, methanol, and the like, fuel cells been spotlighted as next generation energy sources. According to the type of electrolyte used, fuel cells can be classified as phosphoric acid fuel cells, molten carbonate fuel cells, solid oxide fuel cells, polymer electrolyte fuel cells, and alkaline fuel cells, and the like. These different types of fuel cells operate on the same basic principle, but differ in view of types of fuels used, operating temperatures, catalysts, electrolytes, and the like.
A polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell uses a proton-conducting polymer membrane as an electrolyte and, as a single cell, comprises a polymer electrolyte membrane and a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) comprising an anode electrode and a cathode electrode positioned on each side of the polymer electrolyte membrane. Generally, the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell is manufactured in a stack structure comprising a plurality of alternately stacked single cells and bipolar plates (BP), which comprise a channel for supplying a fuel and an oxidant to the single cells. One type of fuel cell using a proton conductive polymer membrane electrolyte is a direct methanol fuel cell, which directly supplies liquid-phase fuel to an anode, in addition to the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell as described above. Since the direct methanol fuel cell does not use a fuel processor and operates at the operating temperature less than 100° C., it is advantageous used for portable or small-sized fuel cell structures.
Meanwhile, in order to manufacture the fuel cell stack, the performance of the membrane electrode assembly should be tested prior to the completion of the stack. Otherwise, a bad specific membrane electrode assembly will degrade the performance of the entire stack, and in such a case, it takes considerable processes and costs for dismantling the fuel cell stack and replacing the bad membrane electrode assembly.
A single fuel cell stack may include several to several tens of membrane electrode assemblies. Therefore, in order to manufacture one fuel cell stack, the performances of each of several to several tens membrane electrode assemblies should be tested, if possible.
The device and the method for testing a conventional membrane electrode assembly have been disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-220786 (Aug. 5, 2004) and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-71882 (Mar. 17, 2005), and the like. The MEA test methods disclosed in the publications are basically the methods to test a single membrane electrode assembly. Therefore, the conventional MEA test methods described above take too much time to test all of the membrane electrode assemblies.
On the other hand, the membrane electrode assemblies may each be tested by using several tens test devices, with concomitant increased costs of equipment for the test device and for maintaining and managing the test device.
Also, after the test of the membrane electrode assembly, the performance of the membrane electrode assembly may be improved by activation. In this case, it takes at least one test device a predetermined time, for example, operating time for several hours or several ten hours, in order to test one membrane electrode assembly and to perform the activation. Such an environment is not suitable for a process for mass production of the fuel cell stack.